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Dennis Kawuma�s �Ridding Society Of Pornography Is The Way To Go� (The Monitor, December 23) was an example of an article or letter that regularly finds its way into Ugandan newspapers.
We know their content before we read them � blame it all on the Red Pepper and the like.
Mr Kawuma�s article appears prompted by a recent parliamentary debate on pornography during which: �the Red Pepper and Bukedde, known for publishing sexually explicit materials, were labelled as the key suppliers of pornography.�
And why should we worry about such publications? Kawuma continues: �Research has shown that pornography and its messages are involved in shaping attitudes and encouraging behaviour than can harm individuals, families or entire communities.�
Dear readers, always beware sentences that begin �research has shown.� Research can show many things, sometimes what the researcher wants it to show. And even if the research is soundly-based, if it was done in New York or London, its applicability to Kampala or Kitgum is another matter altogether.
But the weakness of Kawuma-type views on pornography is their implicit assumption that all was OK, or reasonably OK, in the Ugandan sexual garden, until the Red Pepper (plus video parlours, internet cafes, DSTV, and ebimansulo turned up on the scene, and that since then things Ugandan and sexual have rapidly gone downhill. What nonsense!
Eighteen months ago I wrote in the Sunday Monitor, �Uganda was a highly sexual and promiscuous society long before the appearance� of supposedly pornographic publications.
This was not intended as a criticism of Uganda, since many societies, including my own country of origin, are promiscuous. All I was asking for was, more truthfulness in discussing pornography in Uganda and especially, to avoid comparison of today with a past �Golden Age� which never existed.
To illustrate this, consider the often downtrodden, humble housegirl.
Let�s say father has sex with the housegirl. Did this occurrence suddenly result from one or both of them reading the Red Pepper?
I doubt it, since such relationships between housegirls and father or uncle have long existed - I will back this statement using three sources, which taken together, are persuasive. Please remember, reference is not to all fathers/uncles, but to a proportion of them.
The first source is personal. As a foreigner, a wonderful experience in Uganda has been that if one is open and truthful about oneself, then close Ugandan friends are equally open and truthful about themselves and their families.
Thus my wife and I know several Ugandan families where father had sex with, sometimes impregnating, the housegirl or the neighbours� housegirl.
The second source of the taata/housegirl relationship is Mary Karooro Okurut�s excellent recent book, �The Official Wife�.
Liz is the official wife and Ishaka is the husband and father of her children. Liz comments:
�I know that even if I get another one (housegirl), Ishaka will seduce her as well. He seems to get attracted to these girls the way a cat is attracted to milk.�
The third and final source is �Kampala Women Getting By: Wellbeing in the Time of AIDS.� It is another excellent book and draws on research undertaken in Kamwokya during 1992 � 94.
It states that there is: �a particular demand niche for young girls in the urban economy which allows disproportionate numbers of them to exist in towns.� Or put more simply, the demand for housegirls is in part sexual, not just based on economics.
These three examples concerning housegirls are drawn on experiences or research that long pre-date the arrival of the Red Pepper in Uganda in late 2002.
So when the Kawuma-type moralists argue that pornography encourages �behaviour than can harm individuals, families or entire communities,� they are not necessarily correct. We should remember that their comparison is often with a past that never existed.
For, as the housegirl illustrates, her sexual exploitation has a long history in Uganda.
Isn�t it better to know that father is watching ebimansulo in a public place, than not know he is defiling the housegirl in a private place?
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